"Yes," she answered faintly, from the depths of the labyrinth in which she
was plunged again.
"I'm sorry for your news about him," said the doctor. "I hoped he was
going to stay. It's always a pity when such a man lets his sympathies use
him instead of using them. But we must always judge that kind of crank
leniently, if he doesn't involve other people in his erase."
She knew that he was shielding and trying to spare her, and she felt
inexpressibly degraded by the terms of his forbearance. She could not
accept, and she had not the strength to refuse it; and Putney said: "I've
not seen anything to make me doubt his sanity; but I must say the present
racket shakes my faith in his common-sense, and I rather held by that, you
know. But I suppose no man, except the kind of a man that a woman would be
if she were a man--excuse me, Annie--is ever absolutely right. I suppose
the truth is a constitutional thing, and you can't separate it from
the personal consciousness, and so you get it coloured and heated by
personality when you get it fresh. That is, we can see what the absolute
truth was, but never what it is."
Putney amused himself in speculating on these lines with more or less
reference to Mr. Peck, and did not notice that the doctor and Annie gave
him only a silent assent. "As to misleading any one else, Mr. Peck's
following in his new religion seems to be confined to the Savors, as
I understand. They are going with him to help him set up a sort of
cooperative boarding-house. Well, I don't know where we shall get a hotter
gospeller than Brother Peck. Poor old fellow! I hope he'll get along better
in Fall River. It is something to be out of reach of Gerrish."
The doctor asked, "When is he going?"
"Why, he's gone by this time, I suppose," said Putney. "I tried to get him
to think about it overnight, but he wouldn't. He's anxious to go and get
back, so as to preach his last sermon here Sunday, and he's taken the 9.10,
if he hasn't changed his mind." Putney looked at his watch.
"Let's hope he hasn't," said Dr. Morrell.
"Which?" asked Putney.
"Changed his mind. I'm sorry he's coming back."
Annie knew that he was talking at her, though he spoke to Putney; but she
was powerless to protest.